In a store such as a supermarket and the like, a customer who purchases commodities puts displayed commodities in a shopping basket or a cart and carries the shopping basket or cart to a checkout counter. A shop clerk carries out checkout work at the checkout counter. A reading apparatus such as a barcode scanner for reading commodity information is arranged on the checkout counter. The shop clerk, standing at a position opposite to the customer across the checkout counter, reads the commodities brought by the customer one by one through the reading apparatus to input information relating to the commodity to be purchased.
Conventionally, there are provided various services for promoting sales in the store. For example, points are given according to the purchase amount and stored cumulatively in a store server in association with identification information (membership number and the like) of customers. The given points are used to receive a discount or exchange a commodity corresponding to the point amount from the next transaction and thereafter. Further, an IC card (membership card) including an IC tag in which the identification information is stored is used for sending and receiving the identification information.
Incidentally, in the constitution of the conventional checkout counter, for example, in a case in which the customer shows the membership card to the operator to receive points, the work of the operator (shop clerk) is interrupted, or the customer has to show the membership card before the registration work of the shop clerk is started or after the registration work of the shop clerk is completed, in general. As a result, there is a possibility that the work efficiency of the shop clerk is dropped. Further, there is a problem that showing the card is too troublesome for customers.